Google Earth
Vizualise our Planet
Google Earth is much more than a fun way to go looking at the planet and find
place. It is also a powerful learning tool which can be applied across the
curriculum to support enquiry and problem based learning.
It is a client based application so you need to download it onto your computer
and make sure you keep up to date with the latest version.
There are three ways of using Google Earth:
1. To Search for places – countries,
cities, districts, places of interest
2. To add your own Places by
creating and save your own
data by using Placemarks,
the Area Tool, Pathways or
Routes and Video Tours
3. To explore the
Information Layers that
come with Google Earth.
These add information
about national borders,
road and street plans, 3D
Buildings, Oceanography,
Environmental Issues and
more.
Examples of Learning Activities using Google Earth
Student returned from a school trip with information in form of data and photos.
They used the Placemark tool to mark significant places they visited and then
embedded their data and images into the Placement window. They then made a
Video Tour to illustrate the sequence of their site visits and the topography.
Finally they used the Path tool to calculate how far they hiked on one of their
days. Some students took a GPS unit with them and then transferred the
Waypoints from the GPS into Google Earth. All students were able to save and
share their Google Earth data as KMZ files.
A history class studying the Long March used Google earth to make a Video Tour
which highlighted the key events and places on the Long March. Students added
commentary, websites and embedded YouTube Videos to their Placemarks to
inform and explain what happened on the Long March
A teacher used Google Earth to create a problem solving activity in which, each
week, she gave her student cryptic clues about the location and identity of a well
known location ( Building, Park, Geological Formation etc). The students had to
unravel the clues to locate the place
For many more examples of how to use Google Earth in the classroom visit
Google Earth Lessons
Classroom Tips
Google Earth is a great distractor so you need to establish some classroom rules
such as no flight simulator unless you have a pilot’s licence or no visiting other
planets unless you have parents permission to leave Earth!
Encourage children to change the perspective from Bird’s Eye view to a forward
looking perspective.
Sometimes Google Earth opens up with all the layers turned and the screen looks
very cluttered – show them how to deselect layers.
Taking snapshots of their Google Earth views is handy and is found under
File..Save..Save As..Image
Right click over a Placemark and you can save it as a KMZ file
Explore the world of Street View and 3D Buildings
Three videos about Google Earth can be found on the GSIS MediaCore site
Useful Websites for creating your Own Maps
Animaps
Scribble Maps
Step Maps
ArcGIS
National Geographic Map Maker